I was raised in our family restaurant. One of these days, when I can sit down and focus on those years, I would bet I have enough stories to fill at least three books. There was always something going on.

This is one of my favorite stories. It is involves my mom and grandfather during one of their more insane moments.

You would be surprised to know how often customers walk out without paying their bill. Occasionally, it would be someone who sincerely just forgot and those are easy to remedy fairly quickly.

Unfortunately the majority of people are trying to get a free meal. We pretty much considered these people scum of the earth. I am not talking about a homeless person that is starving…we would always take care of those folks and not expect a dime. It is the people who come in and bring a group with them, order the biggest steaks on the menu and drink more than Lindsay Lohan could in a week.

They were sly. One would go to the bathroom, then the second person. Finally the last person would get up and sneak out at our busiest moments. It was these people that we would chase after. Chasing after “walkers” was one of my favorite things about working in our restaurant.

A waitress would run back to the kitchen and scream, “Walkers! We have walkers going out the back!”

Everyone and I mean everyone would ensue pursuit out the back door. But the day this particular incident happened, my mom and grandfather were the first two to discover this guy had walked and he was running. My mom takes off after him with my grandfather in hot pursuit. The man hits the back door and is in a full on sprint. They know they will never ever catch him and that just won’t do. So my grandfather screams, “Shoot him! Just shoot his ass!”

To which my mother replies, “I’ve got the gun!”

We didn’t even keep a gun on the property. The man dropped to his knees, putting his hands behind his head and started whimpering, “Oh my GOD! Oh my GOD! Please don’t shoot me, lady!”

By this time the entire staff has surrounded him on the parking lot and he sees they don’t have a gun. To say the man was a little angry is a huge understatement.

During his barrage of profanities, my mother lost her temper and slapped the man in the face. Hard.

“Oh lady, you are gonna pay for that. I am going to have the police arrest you when they get here.”

“Really? How many witnesses do you think we have here that will back up your story? Hmmm…I don’t see any. I seriously doubt they will believe such a thing from a man who just stole from a restaurant.”

The police arrived and the man tried to have them haul my mom off too, but of course they didn’t listen to him. As my mom and grandpa were walking back into the restaurant, my grandpa looked at my mom and said, “You know, this is supposed to be fun. I think you might be taking this a little too seriously. Try to relax and have more fun with the next one.”

That’s a great story. I thought surely I had a story to top that, but cream rises to the top. Mine sank to the bottom. Realizing I don’t write as well as you… You win the cake. And I leave the scene humming an old Hank Williams song, “You Win Again.”